There’s been a debate lately as to whether the iPad can fit into the so-called PC category. Following the release of several estimates and market research studies showing much different results when the iPad is included in the overall PC sales of the entire industry, a number of people have voiced once again their opinions on the matter, producing a variegate mix of diverging points. Our writer Graham Spencer chimed in as well, analyzing the reasons behind certain people’s assertion that the iPad can’t be a PC because it can’t fully replace a personal computer.

I, however, would like to take a different route and look at this issue from a broader perspective that includes data, Apple’s history, the current market’s situation, and the tech community’s change of direction on the “iPad as a PC” debate over the past two years.

The starting point, I believe, lies in the words Steve Jobs used to introduce the iPad back in 2010:

Everybody uses a laptop and a smartphone. And a question has arisen lately: is there room for a third category of device in the middle? Something that’s between a laptop and a smartphone. And of course we’ve pondered this question for years as well. The bar’s pretty high. In order to really create a new category of devices, those devices are going to have to be far better at doing some key tasks. Better than a laptop. Better than a smartphone. Now, some people have thought…that’s a netbook. The problem is, netbooks aren’t better at anything. They’re slow, they have low quality displays and they run clunky old PC software. So, they’re not better than a laptop at anything. They’re just cheaper. They’re just cheap laptops. We don’t think they’re a new category of device.

In the few minutes that led to the iPad’s introduction, Jobs carefully set the tone and Apple’s position for the upcoming discussions on the true nature of the device: the iPad is meant to be a “third category” that executes “key tasks” better than a laptop, and better than a smartphone. He didn’t compare the iPad to a PC, but he did mention that Apple wouldn’t follow the trend of releasing cheap “netbooks” that “aren’t better at anything”. Of course, Steve Jobs iterated on his statements regarding the nature of the iPad a few months later at D8 Conference. This is where Jobs famously compared PCs to trucks:

When we were an agrarian nation, all cars were trucks, because that’s what you needed on the farm,” Jobs said at D8 last month. “But as vehicles started to be used in the urban centers, cars got more popular. Innovations like automatic transmission and power steering and things that you didn’t care about in a truck as much started to become paramount in cars….PCs are going to be like trucks. They’re still going to be around, they’re still going to have a lot of value, but they’re going to be used by one out of x people.

As you can see, Jobs’ public definition and positioning of the iPad slightly changed in the months between January and June 2010. I believe the more intimate setting of D8 got Jobs into a talking mood which helped him express what he truly felt about the iPad and PCs; I also believe Apple itself was (is) still trying to understand what the iPad ultimately is, thus definitions and public statements might change and evolve over time. Tim Cook stated numerous times that, whilst excited about the opportunities opened by iPad, Apple still has to fully understand just how much market there is behind it. Furthermore, keep in mind how Apple initially touted the iPad as a productivity machine (2010 keynote), then an entertainment platform (iPad 2 keynote) and subsequently as an educational machine (January 2012). Apple still has to fully grasp the potential of the iPad, and is firing on all cylinders to gain as much share as possible before the market is too crowded. That’s not to say Apple doesn’t have a strategy; in fact, they have multiple ones and they are trying to optimize the proper sequence for the company to put them in place.

Strategies, typically, are based on patterns, and Apple wouldn’t have gotten to exceed $46 billion in revenue if these patterns hadn’t been associated with the numbers and data coming in after the launch of the original iPad. The numbers speak clearly for Apple: of all iOS devices, the iPad has the most rapid trajectory in every quarter since launch with an impressive growth from 3.27 million units (first quarter) to 15.43 million units sold (last quarter). Horace Dediu has put together a nice chart showing the penetration of the iPad in terms of shipments and growth.

Numbers help establishing patterns that define strategies and business models. Sure enough, the early success of the iPad has allowed Apple to turn a product that represents a good 20% of revenue into a category worth focusing on for the future. As I explained in this article, if the source is to be believed, Tim Cook hinting at the iPad being a better alternative than a possible ARM-based, iPad-like MacBook Air is interesting for a number of reasons. First off, it sort of implies that tasks that can be accomplished with an iPad-inspired MacBook Air (that is, regular PC tasks with instant-on and a slimmer form factor) could be easily, if not better executed by the iPad itself. Indeed, the same report goes on to note that Tim Cook believes the iPad ”satisfies—or will soon satisfy—the needs of those who might have been interested in such a product”. More importantly, assuming an ARM-based MacBook Air has ever been in testing within Apple and that such a machine would be positioned as an ultra-portable, fast and durable low-end Mac, it means Apple sees the iPad as the portable and lightweight personal computer for the masses seeking a high-quality product in the low end. (more…)

A few hours ago I listened to the latest episode of Shawn Today (a daily podcast from Shawn Blanc available to members of his site), and in it he discussed the issue of whether the iPad is a Personal Computer.  This follows an article by Matthew Panzarino on The Next Web yesterday, titled “Look, tablets are PCs, get over it“. In fact I could point to quite a few articles and discussions about this question of whether tablets (specifically the iPad) are PCs. But Shawn’s episode and Matthew’s post have inspired me to also weigh in on the discussion today, with why I believe the iPad should legitimately be counted within the PC market.

I’ll just start with this question: what computer is more personal than an iPad? The tablet form factor and iOS software combine together to make using the iPad a far more personal computing device than a traditional PC desktop or laptop, where you have to interact with the software from an arm’s length away, using a mouse or trackpad and a keyboard.

So the iPad is personal device, but is it a fully functional computer? John Mello at PCWorld says no, because in his opinion people don’t use it for content creation. Matthew’s article on TNW does a great job at dismantling this oft-quoted “complaint” about the  iPad and I recommend reading his entire argument. When the iPad first came out I must admit I had the same thoughts about the device, but as time has gone on I have increasingly used it for content-creation — whether it be annotating PDFs for studying, writing, and even some (very average) efforts at using iMovie. Content-creation on the iPad will continue to become more common as people adjust to the device and as app developers continue to adapt to creating great software for the iPad — just look at how productivity apps have improved and advanced in the past year on the iPad.

Sure, some content-creation tasks may never be as easy to do on an iPad compared to a more traditional PC — things like advanced video editing or long stretches of writing. But by the same token, a small netbook isn’t good for those tasks either and yet it is counted as a PC. I know I would always choose an iPad over a netbook for virtually any task because in my opinion it is a far more capable personal computer. On the flip side, I think the iPad is actually a better computer for things like annotating PDFs with apps such as PDF Expert. Then for things like advanced video or audio editing it’s only inevitable for those apps to transition to iOS, in fact just today Avid Studio was released – it may be a distilled version of the advanced desktop version, but it will evolve and become increasingly powerful for most tasks that an average user and even “pro-sumer” will need. The iPad is personal and (in my opinion) it is also a functional computing device.

So if you are excluding the iPad from the personal computer category, does that mean there is some checklist of requirements for a device to be a PC? Does it need a keyboard, or perhaps a trackpad or a mouse, or does it just have to be able to install any application you want (without the approval of a gatekeeper such as Apple)? All of these ‘requirements’ are completely arbitrary – with no practical reason as to why they are required to be on a PC. You can still connect a keyboard to the iPad if you need one for extended periods of writing, your finger is the “mouse” and Apple’s App Store has mostly protected consumers from nefarious apps or excessively useless/buggy apps — virtually everything I need is on the App Store (in fact there are over 170,000 apps just for the iPad). You may not like this policy (I can understand that, even if I don’t agree with it), but is it really a reason to bar the iPad from being counted as a PC? Again, that’s completely arbitrary.

Arbitrary: Based on random choice or personal whim, rather than any reason or system.

If you are still thinking that the iPad doesn’t count as a PC, what will all those Windows 8 computers in tablet/slate form be counted as? You can’t bar them from being “a PC” because they will be able to “morph” into what is essentially a Windows 8 laptop with a traditional Windows desktop, use a keyboard (and even mouse) and yet you can use it like them as tablets with a different, touch-based UI.

But if you do count them as a PCs, you surely have to count the iPad as a PC too then. They will be virtually identical devices from a functionality and experience point of view, unless you say the Windows 8 tablet is a PC because it will still have the traditional Windows desktop, and then I go back to the fact that it is an arbitrary requirement. One might actually argue (from what we know at the moment), that the iPad is more functional and will provide a better experience because it has two years of developer support with apps that have been specifically designed for the touch interface, whereas any Windows 8 tablet may be handicapped with the Windows desktop because it isn’t designed for touch-input and Metro may lack many apps at launch. The reality is that both should be counted as PCs: it is the only logical solution.

But…but…..but….

You might now point to the fact that Apple has touted the iPad as a Post-PC device, so surely if Apple themselves aren’t calling it a PC, it shouldn’t then be counted in any PC marketshare analysis. It’s a decent point, but I think Apple did that as more of a marketing move, to point out that it is a different, unique device. In fact, it is the next evolution (if not revolution) of the personal computer. Maybe the solution is just calling the “traditional” PC category something different (Desktops & Laptops perhaps?) that would make much more sense than trying to arbitrarily force the iPad out of the PC category.

One other decent rebuttal may be to then ask, if you are including the iPad, why not also include the iPhone. It’s a very good point, because I think it is also a personal computing device to some degree. I think the reason why it’s legitimate to leave the iPhone and other smartphones out of most PC market analysis is because there are enough points of differentiation between the traditional PC/iPad and the smartphone in the way it is used and experienced. These include the fact that smartphones have a distinct use case of being always-on communication devices, time management devices (Calendar/To-Do apps, etc), time-wasters (Angry Birds in a long queue, anyone?), and are occasionally used for content-creation or content consumption. They are also devices you spend using for a few minutes at a time (typically), multiple times a day — rather than PCs (including iPad), which you use for longer periods of time.

You might claim these are arbitrary reasons and, yes, to some degree they are, but that’s because the line between whether a smartphone can also be counted as a PC is a far blurrier line than that of iPads as PCs. In my opinion at least, it would be OK to include smartphones as PCs in a market analysis if there is a good reason as to why it’s an important conclusion – such as an analysis of trends. A good example of this is Horace Dediu, who included smartphones as PCs in the final graph of his article entitled “The rise and fall of personal computing“.

So as Matthew Panzarino said yesterday in a very succinct title and what I completely agree with, “tablets are PCs, get over it”.

Last month’s release of new MacBook Airs and OS X Lion seems to have given Apple a significant boost in sales for the first month of the September quarter. The latest statistics from NPD reveal that year-over-year, Mac sales were up by 26% – to put that into context it means that Mac growth outpaces the growth of the PC market six-fold.

Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster believes that if that kind of growth continues Apple will easily make the estimates of 4.5 million total Mac sales for the quarter. He noted to his clients that the Lion, MacBook Air and Mac Mini launches in mid-July helped inflate Mac sales for the month. However, he did caution them that “these tailwinds will fade throughout the September quarter and year-over-year compares get slightly tougher in the last two months of the quarter”.

The rapid Mac sales growth has seen the platform outpace the growth of the PC market for 21 consecutive quarters and most believe that trend will continue for some time yet. Ben Reitzes of Barclays notes that they expect Apple to continue to gain share in Macs in the long term, despite the iPad’s presence. He adds that their “estimate for Mac growth of 18 percent year-over-year for Apple’s C3Q, may turn out to be conservative even though the global economy appears to be slowing quite a bit.”

[Via AllThingsD]

We’ve talked about myPhoneDesktop before on MacStories but we thought it deserved a short ‘re-review’ to accompany today’s giveaway. Keeping it simple, the premise of myPhoneDesktop is that it provides a portal through which you can easily transfer data and information from your desktop computer to your iPhone or iPad.

Broadly speaking the app transfers four types of data including phone data (both numbers and text messages), website URLs, text and images. When you send any of that data from your computer, and there is both a desktop and web client, it will be pushed straight to your device with a notification.

But where I think the app becomes most powerful is when you have the data on your iPhone or iPad. In the corner of the app it has the “Open in” icon where it literally has a wealth of options for your data. There is everything from the obligatory search with Google, to send by email, add to contact, send SMS or launching another app with that data. Importantly, the developers aren’t resting on their laurels, since we last talked about myPhoneDesktop there have been a few updates that continue to add more app integrations including Navigon and InstaTodo.

In reality I have only just scraped the surface of what this app can do, for example it also integrates with Google Voice and Skype, so make sure to check out the myPhoneDesktop website to learn more and get your own copy. Today we’re giving away 5 ‘double passes’ of myPhone desktop – in other words the five winners will receive two promo codes, perfect to give one copy to a iPhone-toting friend or family member, or (god forbid) use it as a belated Father’s Day gift. Details of the give away are past the break.

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OnLive, the cloud-based gaming platform that allows you to play a variety of PC and console games from a web browser on your computer or any TV through a cheap set-top box always connected to the Internet, has announced that the official app for iPad and Android tablets will be available this Fall in both the United States and Europe. Teased several times in the past, it appears the final version of the OnLive Player app has been completely rewritten to fully take avantage of cloud gaming features such as voice chat and multiplayer, but more importantly the developers have figured out a way to run PC games on a server, send video to the iPad, and let iPad owners interact with the game using touch input — not just buttons. In fact, it’ll be possible to enjoy OnLive on the iPad with a standard controller, but according to OnLive CEO Steve Perlman some games will be updated to support touch controls on the iPad and the server. This means that whilst you’ll be playing a game that doesn’t actually run on your local machine and doesn’t normally support touch on consoles and PCs, thanks to the iPad app (and developers’ support) it will.

The power of the cloud is definitely the theme this week, displacing what had been assumed to be platforms that could never be displaced,” said Steve Perlman, Founder and CEO of OnLive. “The OnLive Player App for iPad and Android shows how with the power of the cloud, the question is not whether cloud gaming will be able to catch up to consoles, it will be whether consoles will be able to catch up to cloud gaming.

Check out the demo video from OnLive CEO after the break. Currently, OnLive comes with a native Mac app that enables gamers to play the rather large selection of title available through the platform.

[image via]
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In a report by Goldman Sachs analyst Bill Shope, Tim Cook speaks some pretty bold words about the future of the tablet market and the PC market. Speaking with Shope, he says “he sees no reason why the tablet market shouldn’t eclipse the PC market over the next several years”.

Shope notes that Apple, in the statement is more “overtly optimistic” on the long-term prospects of the platform than they have in the past. In the report itself, Shope suggests that Apple will sell 8.1 million iPads in the June quarter, compared to last year it would be 72% increase.

Apple executives were also touting the fact the iPhone is now officially available from 200 carriers worldwide, and that ten years since opening, its retail stores are doing well.

[Via BusinessInsider]

Parallels, probably best known for its popular virtualization software, has today released a new product that lets you make migration from Windows to OS X dead simple. The product, Parallels Transporter is being offered at a special introductory price of $0.99 on the Mac App Store (it’s regular price will be a rather expensive $39.99) and allows users to automatically transfer music, pictures, documents and more from a Windows computer to a Mac.

Using an external hard drive, wireless network or a Parallels USB transfer cable, Transporter will automatically transfer the data to the appropriate locations the Mac. Whether it is documents in the home directory or bookmarks for browsers, Transporter will do all the work in correctly transferring the users files.

We created Parallels Transporter to be the simplest, most efficient way to transfer everything you need from your old PC to your Mac in just a few easy steps. Now you can move to a Mac without the time-consuming chore of manually moving files and without the expense of hiring somebody to do it for you.

Transporter will even transfer over Windows applications and other files into a virtual machine on the Mac so that if you end up using Parallels Desktop, everything will be set up and ready to go for you – although note that this does require the purchase of Parallels Desktop which isn’t included in Transporter.

The iPad’s cannibalization of the PC market may have slowed if the latest NPD market research report is any sign of things to come. The report found that new purchasers of the iPad are less likely to have foregone purchasing a PC than the early adopters of the iPad. It found that of those who had purchased the iPad over the holiday season, 12% would have decided against a PC purchase when they bought an iPad. This is a 2% drop from the 14% of those decided against a PC amongst those who had owned their iPad for 6 months or more.

Netbooks were saved the most, with iPad cannibalization falling by 50%, which actually led the netbook market to grow by 21% between September 2010 and March 2011. NPD also believes that the slowing of PC sales over the past couple of months has more to do with Windows 7 than the iPad:

The explosion of computer sales when Windows 7 launched, as well as the huge increase in netbook sales at that time, are much more to blame for weak consumer PC sales growth than the iPad

The report contradicts what analysts were calling the “iPad effect” in the first quarter of 2011 when US PC sales fell 10.7%. In fact at least one analyst, including Katy Huberty of Morgan Stanley, revised her 2011 PC shipments down after predicting a tablet cannibalization rate of 29% – which is nearly 3 times what this NPD report says was the rate when it surveyed customers in March.

[Via AppleInsider]

Another new feature discovered in the developer preview of OS X Lion is the ability to set up a Mac from a networked Windows PC as part of the Migration Assistant utility. Traditionally the only way to set up a new Mac and import all your files and settings was to use FireWire’s Target Disk Mode and hook up the old Mac or PC to the new Mac or use a Time Machine disk.

When Apple removed the FireWire port on some of its Macs it added the ability for Migration Assistant to import from a networked Mac, but not a PC. The Migration Assistant in the developer preview of OS X 10.7 Lion now brings the ability for new Mac users to set up Lion with data and settings from an existing Windows-based PC. The only caveat being that it requires a Migration Assistant helper client to be running on the Windows machine. For developers wishing to test this out, you’ll need to download that helper client from Apple’s developer site.

[Via AppleInsider]